Run like hell (Pink Floyd) (LP 3498 - 3503)

Pink Floyd   A Momentary Lapse of Reason (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1987) ****  

Pink Floyd   Delicate Sound of Thunder (CD, CBS Records, 1988) ***  

Pink Floyd   Live at Knebworth 1990 (CD, Pink Floyd Records, 2021) *** 

Pink Floyd   The Division Bell (CD, EMI Records, 1994) *****

Pink Floyd   Pulse (CD, EMI Records, 1995) *** 

Pink Floyd   The Endless River (CD, Columbia Records, 2014) *** 

Genre: Prog rock 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records, St Luke's Mall's music shop, JB Hi-Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Wearing The Inside Out (The Division Bell)

Gear costume: High Hopes (The Division Bell)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: It was something of a surprise to hear and see Learning To Fly on Radio With Pictures in the mid-eighties. I'd sort of forgotten about Pink Floyd by that stage. 

But then, suddenly, - David Gilmour's Pink Floyd (with Richard Wright and Nick Mason also on board) were everywhere! Including a show at Western Springs in Auckland. 

The album was a great experience; being the type of Pink Floyd sound that I loved. I played it a lot at home and on my Sony Walkman (most memorably while on a school camp in the Nelson mountain region as I reflected on what to say to the students after we found they'd brought some drugs to the camp - fun times).

Jacky and I went to that Western Springs concert along with thousands of others and enjoyed the live Pink Floyd spectacle - the floating pig was impressive, so buying the live album, Delicate Sound of Thunder was a no-brainer. 

It's a good selection of songs from across their career, and the elongated Money and Us and Them are good to have. Most, if not all of the other songs are faithful renditions of the songs from the studio albums. Which I'm fine with, btw. 

Live at Knebworth 1990, which was released in 2021, is from that same era of Pink Floyd. All of the songs on the album are also on Delicate Sound of Thunder, except for The Great Gig in the Sky. This means, it's more of historical value and one for the collectors if you're feeling generous and a cynical move to rinse fans/collectors if you're not (the versions of Money etc are identical to those on Delicate Sound of Thunder). Nice cover though.

After another lull - seven years this time, the Gilmour led Pink Floyd returned with The Division Bell. A real five-star classic, in my opinion. The production is superb, it feels like a real band again and it's a return to pre Dark Side dynamics - a period of Pink Floyd that I love. 

Aside from his posthumous appearance on The Endless River, Rick Wright's singing and music for Wearing the Inside Out would be his final appearance on a Pink Floyd album and it's a fitting one (Dick Parry even reappears after a 20 year absence). 

The lyrics (by fellow progger Anthony Moore) are apposite for the time and now ironically - I'm creeping back to life/ My nervous system all awry/ I'm wearing the inside out. Rick sings it superbly. R.I.P. Richard Wright.

Pulse, their third live album, was released the next year and followed the studio record - The Division Bell. It was notable for a full live rendition of Dark Side of the Moon - complete with all the requisite sound effects. It's faithful to the studio album, so, again - I'm not really sure what the point was.

The Endless River is a personal tribute to Rick Wright, It has mostly instrumental music produced during The Division Bell recordings. It's quite ambient in nature - which is fitting. It's not an album I return to often though. Out of the albums included on this list, that honour goes to The Division Bell.

Where do they all belong? Pink Floyd compilations are next up.